


Jebać Scenę w Maszynowni Maczetami

by BarthVader



Series: Inny Tor / Zwrotnicaverse [1]
Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Akechi Goro Lives, Cognitive Akechi Goro Fucking Dies, Dark Comedy, Dramedy, Engine Room, Gen, Non-Graphic Violence, Ryuji Says Fuck, the title means "fuck the engine room scene with machetes"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 10:35:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28598547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarthVader/pseuds/BarthVader
Summary: In which a snap decision redirects the plot ever so slightly. The aftermath of the Engine Room fight, as rewritten by a guy that hated the aftermath of the Engine Room fight. A standalone-ish prologue to Zwrotnica.
Series: Inny Tor / Zwrotnicaverse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2095587
Comments: 5
Kudos: 28





	Jebać Scenę w Maszynowni Maczetami

The fight was over.

“Mediarahan,” Joker casted a spell to restore his worn-out teammates, then shot a glare towards the downed enemy. “Ya know, being betrayed is one thing, being betrayed for weaksauce reasons when common sense dictates working together is another.”

“Just… piss off,” Akechi hissed, kneeling on the ground. His admittedly considerable combat ability didn’t stand a chance against the Thieves’ secret tactic of outnumbering him four to one. “What could you possibly _know_ about what I went through?”

“Shit, you’re right,” Ryuji said, in a sassy tone, then turned towards Futaba. “What could you possibly know about being an orphan bounced from one shit home to another, Oracle?”

“Four-oh-four, file not found,” she responded in kind. “And what could _you_ possibly know about abusive fathers, Skull?”

“And we just can’t weigh in about _prematurely deceased parents,_ can we?” Haru snarled with unusual if expected vitriol.

“Drop the fucking sarcasm chain, I get it,” the detective muttered. “Just skip to the part where you finish me off.”

The princess raised her grenade launcher, but Joker gestured at her to lower it. “Nobody gets ‘finished off’.”

“Oh, really?” Akechi mustered out one last bit of defiance to raise his head and stare the brunette in the eyes. “After all I’ve done… after all the shit I’ve put you through… you’ll be weak enough to let me live?”

“As if resisting the urge to shoot you where you stand doesn’t take effort,” Ann growled.

“I can deal with that for you.”

Everyone turned towards the source of the voice and noticed something vaguely human-shaped stepping out of the shadows. It looked remarkably like Goro Akechi on a trip through the uncanny valley - the suit and hairdo were spot-on, the unnaturally wide eyes weren’t. 

“Who or what are you?” Joker asked.

The thing let out a condescending chuckle. “Can’t you tell? I’m a cognition, you fool,” he explained. “This Palace’s last, best line of defense.”

“Considering that we’ve gathered all the letters of recommendation, you have failed.” Yusuke pointed out.

“Surely, you cannot be _that_ stupid.” The cognition stared at him with his unblinking eyes. “As long as you didn’t have all five of them, you weren’t a threat. I was going to step in after you got the fifth, but then this cretin-” He hissed in pain, interrupted by a laser shot to the temple.

The Thieves turned to notice the real Akechi holding his ray gun with an unsteady hand. The cognition, with a large burn mark on the side of his head, walked up to him and yanked the gun away.

“As I was saying,” the cognition said, twirling the ray gun in his left hand, “letting that cretin wear you down a bit before stepping in meant that me taking you down will require less effort.” He snapped his fingers and a crowd of blobby Shadows materialized behind him. The Thieves raised their guard.

At that point, it was apparent that the cognition loved the sound of his voice, so Joker decided asking won’t hurt: “Why didn’t you step in earlier, before we trashed The Real Slim Shady?”

“Because his days are numbered anyway.”

Joker raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“What...” Akechi hissed.

“You’ve done your job well,” the cognition turned to the real deal. “Lord Shido’s on the fast track to a landslide victory, which means your services are no longer required.” He grinned. “Honestly, even if you weren’t planning to betray him, you would’ve,” cue air quotes, “‘commited suicide’ after the results came in anyway. What can I say, the pressure of celebrity life was too much for you.”

“A guy solving every problem with murder wanted to solve a problem with murder,” Morgana snarked. “What a twist!”

“I mean, I would’ve thought he’d remain useful even after the elections,” Joker responded. “Without the whole ‘betrayal’ business at least.”

“Maybe,” the cognition shrugged. “I’m just following orders. Anyway,” he put Akechi’s gun to his head, “you won’t mind if I start by cleaning up a loose end, will you?” 

In that infinitely small moment of time, an abridged version of the detective’s life went past his eyes. All the decisions that led him to be where he was at that moment, and how he could’ve avoided it all if he had picked the less _idiotic_ options. He wasn’t scared of death - it had been a long time coming, as far as he was concerned - he was just angry at himself for following probably what was the most unreasonable path as opposed to something more practical or requiring less dead people.

Oh well, he thought. After all he had done, that was the demise he deserved.

And then the moment ended with a sound of a racked shotgun.

“Fuck that!” Ryuji announced, then blasted the gun out of cognitive Akechi’s hand. “Not even that turncoat bastard deserves to go like this!”

The cognition slowly turned to him, glaring daggers. “...on second thought, you will die fi-”

Cue another shot from Ryuji. And another, and another, until the gun finally clicked to signify that the athlete had run out of shells. The beige suit of the cognition was now patterned with buckshot holes and faux-blood stains.

“Heh.” Cognitive Akechi forced a smile. “It’s adorable how you think a few shots can stop m-”

“We are _not_ doing a third phase,” Joker barked, pulling out his model handgun. “Everyone, _fire at will._ ”

Since nobody bothered to count their shots, what followed was an uninterrupted, ten-second-long small arms barrage. Without going into gruesome details, at the end of it, when the leader of the Thieves gestured to hold fire, the cognition looked _much_ worse for wear.

“Okay,” he said, pained, “a few… _billion_ shots-”

“Oh, shut up and _die already!_ ” Haru took a few steps of a running start and leaped into the air with her weapon above her head. The second-to-last thing that went through the cognition’s head was ‘oh fuck’, and the _last_ thing was a poleaxe blade, bisecting him lengthwise. What remained of him dissolved before hitting the floor.

The summoned Shadows stared at the princess, and she returned the glare. “I’ll give you a head start,” she hissed. “Five seconds.”

The mooks all dissolved or ran away immediately.

“So, that was a boss fight and a half,” Joker said. “But at least we offed him before he could o _h for fuck’s sake!_ ”

The real Akechi was lying motionless on the ground, eyes closed. Makoto walked up to him and checked the pulse. “He’s still alive.”

“ _This was a triumph,_ ” Futaba sang.

“He’s just unconscious.” The president used a healing item on him, just in case. “He must’ve exhausted himself in the fight, and who knows what that self-berserking did to his body.”

The Thieves carefully circled the detective, as if expecting him to spring up, mock them for caring about him, and attack them again or something. Alas, a minute or so passed and he just laid there, unmoving, almost pitiable in his defeat.

“We can’t leave him alone if Shido wants him dead, can we?” Joker finally broke the silence.

“We… shouldn’t,” Haru said.

“ _Someone_ needs to keep an eye on him, one way or another,” Makoto added. “He’s dangerous in the Metaverse, and if he learned his lesson from this fight, round two will be harder.”

“If he learned his lesson, he won’t attack us again,” Ann said.

“So what, we’re gonna tie him up and keep him in Joker’s attic?” Ryuji asked. After a beat, he added “...I kinda hoped for someone to say ‘no, Skull, that’s a dumb idea’.”

“We don’t have any better ones,” Joker sighed. “Look, we’ve got all the recommendation letters. Let’s secure the route to the Treasure and then get out of here.”

“And then what, carry an unconscious celeb into the subway to Yongen?”

“Sae has a car. I’ll ask her to transport him to Leblanc,” Makoto offered.

“And _then_ what?” Morgana asked.

The leader walked over to the discarded toy gun. There was no easy way out of this, or at the very least no easy way that would’ve allowed him to keep his standards untouched. He had to _try_ to uphold them, didn’t he? If he was willing to just throw Akechi to the wolves because it’s inconvenient, was he actually a hero, or just a bored teenager going after acceptable targets?

“We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it, I guess,” he said, picking the gun up and putting it in his coat’s inner pocket. “I’m sure things will turn out alright.”

“I wish I had your confidence,” the cat muttered.


End file.
